


(sing me) a pogtopian lullaby

by Anonymous



Series: lavender crowned anon's dream smp collection [3]
Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, Fluff, Gen, Implied/Referenced Violence, Light Angst, POV Alternating, Smoking, Snapshots, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-11
Updated: 2020-11-11
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:08:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27515083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Their days are numbered with a war on the horizon, but for the briefest moment, the sound of guitar strings filled the space between them all and rang around the ravine.
Relationships: Floris | Fundy & Wilbur Soot, Niki | Nihachu & Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Niki | Nihachu & Wilbur Soot, Toby Smith | Tubbo & TommyInnit, Toby Smith | Tubbo & Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Series: lavender crowned anon's dream smp collection [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984183
Comments: 2
Kudos: 97
Collections: Anonymous





	(sing me) a pogtopian lullaby

They had nine, almost eight days to prepare for war.

The tension within their humble ravine was palpable, and had been ever since Dream had announced his switch of sides and the possibility of a traitor in their ranks a few hours prior. It certainly didn't help that the announcement was preceded by an attempt to seize back Manburg through trickery which failed spectacularly, the realisation that Schlatt had found the TNT and possibly moved it to Pogtopia, a reveal of true loyalty from Fundy and his spywork and- oh Lord, today had been fucking exhausting.

It was late, and they were sitting in a loose circle around a crackling campfire, passing around baked potatoes. Techno was sitting above them all, in a small alcove he had carved into the stone, but it was obvious he was paying attention to the silence between the group below. 

Quackity broke out into a loud groan, ruffling his feathers in irritation as he stood up suddenly. Without explanation, he hurried off, and while nobody tried to stop him, the tension wavered as confusion filled the void. Tubbo raised a silent eyebrow at Tommy, shoulder to shoulder and huddled closer than anyone else dared to be, and Tommy shrugged with a huff in response. 

Quackity returned with an air of determination and his guitar slung over his back. Techno sat up from his reclined position so he could observe the scene below from a better angle, and caught Wilbur's cynical eye roll as he folded his arms over his chest. Fundy must have caught it too, because he pursed his lips together and looked away, tail flicking to the side. The father and son were sat as far away from each other as possible, one of them mourning the distance and the other, too apathetic to care.

The duck hybrid sat down between Niki and Tubbo, shifting his guitar around to a proper playing position. He ignored the questioning gazes - the suspicious edge to Wilbur's - and instead began to strum idle chords. Broken music echoed around the ravine, a reflection of their own taut state, and Niki wished she could ask for the guitar so she could play a smoother melody, to fake peace for everyone for a few moments, but knew her trembling fingers wouldn't do much better.

It took a while before the idle chords levelled out into something more steady, a soothing melody that blanketed over their tense silence in faux comfort. Wilbur's fingers dug into his arms lightly, and chuckled with a lack of humour as he stared at Quackity, clearly having grown frustrated without an explanation. "So what are you up to, Big Q?"

He was ignored. 

Quackity's eyes were halflidded, fixed on the strings as he played a gentle song. Catching onto the melody, Niki began to subconciously sway to the rhythm, and Fundy's tail followed suit. Then, hesitantly, Quackity began to sing, voice careful but unwavering. 

_ "Let's go in the garden. _

_ You'll find something waiting," _

Tommy and Tubbo relaxed in slow unison at the music, vaguely reminded of light melodies from what felt like long ago. Wilbur had always been the type to comfort and be comforted by music - and it seemed even insanity couldn't change that, because his grip on his arms grew lax even as his expression remained guarded.

_ "Right there where you left it, _

_ lying upside down." _

It was no real secret that Quackity had a good singing voice, and yet, it was as if the ravine had been stunned into a subdued calm with his efforts. Tension leaked down the rivers that ran through their base and disappeared downstream; though perhaps that was only because they had all been wanting to relax, they just hadn't had any opportunity to until now. 

Techno absentmindedly thought that the song was especially lovely with the added echo his alcove caused, leaning against the stone that surrounded the opening.

_ "When you finally find it, _

_ you'll see how it's faded." _

Tubbo began to quietly hum along, dropping his weary head onto Tommy's shoulder, and for once, the taller tilted his own head to rest against his crown in solidarity. Quackity, despite himself, began to smile, and seeing him sink into the song made Niki's eyes soften too, reminded of simpler times. She wanted to sing along, but she didn't know the words, so instead she joined in with Tubbo's humming.

_ "The underside is lighter _

_ when you turn it around." _

Fundy's head was bobbing lightly, and even Wilbur tapped his fingers against his knee, along to the beat. For a moment, they were all lulled into a quiet reprieve, where they forgot the looming threat of war. For just a brief moment, they were only people, together in a cave of music and basking in the feeble warmth of the campfire.

* * *

_ "Everything stays,"  _ Niki hummed, climbing up another tree-crested hill with the absentminded hope of finding a real refuge of safety for herself, and her boys, and anyone else like them. She dreamed of a city hidden from the prying eyes of dictators and hypocrites alike, where they could flourish far away from the grasp of conflict. She wished she had the presence to stop it all entirely, confiscate all their toy soldiers and force them to get along over a nice cup of tea, but she was only one woman and no matter how much she screamed, the ignorant men would never listen. They would keep pushing children haunted by bloodshed and innocents haunted by ignorance to the brink of shattering if she didn't try and hide them away herself.

* * *

  
  


_ "Right where you left it."  _ Quackity dared to breathe, back against a familiarly cold brick wall and wings drawn protectively around himself. He shouldn't be here, he knew, but he had snuck in to steal a few things and was caught by the sound of carefree Karl pledging his allegiance to a demon that never played fair. He knew he was helpless to stop it without risking his own safety, and hated himself for a small part of him yearning to throw himself back at Schlatt's feet just for the opportunity to issue a warning. No, he was better than that, and if Karl didn't have the foresight to recognise what Schlatt really was, the same foresight that Quackity once lacked too, then he would have to deal with that himself.

* * *

_ "Everything stays,"  _ Techno mumbled to himself, trident gripped in one hand. He had all the resources he needed, all the weapons he needed, but he felt restless with nothing to do and a war on the horizon, so he searched for resources anyway. If he stopped for too long, he'd start to hear the sound of his blood rushing past his ears, the promise of slaughter lingering on the edges of his subtly troubled mind. With his inventory full of treasures and remains of mobs, he stepped into the rolling waves of the ocean and turned to glance in the direction of Pogtopia and Manburg. Then, he waded further into the water and aimed his trident towards the location of his secret base.

* * *

_ "But it still changes." _ Fundy sighed, cross-legged in front of a furnace and watching ancient debris slowly smelt as he idly flipped through endless pages. Pages he had poured all his knowledge into, knowledge that helped them gain confidence in the wake of another war, despite the danger such documentation posed towards him. And yet, Wilbur still openly hated him, and he was still overlooked and underappreciated, and he ached for a time where he wasn't aware of the nuances of it all, where his dad could say he loved him and he knew he could believe him. He craved love, attention and everything else nobody had time to spare him anymore, and he watched the netherite ingots set and wondered if he would be discredited for this too. 

* * *

_ "Ever so slightly,"  _ Tubbo sang quietly to himself, trailing after Sam with a torch in one hand and the weight of a stick of TNT in his other. He had stolen a couple from Wilbur's stash, so they had a chance to find more diamonds through their explosion method. It's not like Wilbur didn't have enough already. He pretended he didn't wince when the sound of explosions sounded a little too much like fireworks, and Sam played along, merely wrapping an arm around him in silent support whenever they set off another row of TNT, because no matter how much he went through, Tubbo would always be a little more inclined towards acts of chaos, like blowing a cave up to find its valuables instead of mining for them himself.

* * *

_ "Daily and nightly." _ Tommy whistled, fiddling with a power rail as he connected it to the rest of his track. He straightened up from his squat, wiping at his brow with a satisfied smile as he looked up at the moonlight that washed the world in a cold glow. In the distance, he could see Manburg and the line of his cobblestone railway stretching towards it, a part of him delighted with the progress while the majority was filled with a heavy exhaustion, remembering the horrors of war and no longer able to hide from it with blind patriotism. It was an inevitability that these tracks would either be destroyed or covered in blood, with how close they were to Manburg, but he tried to ignore that and instead listened to the sound of Tubbo jogging towards him from behind, dutifully appearing to force him to rest like he could hear the turmoil in his mind from a mile away.

* * *

_ "In little ways,"  _ Eret whispered as they stepped back to look at their recreation of the Hot Dog Van, hidden behind sturdy museum walls and just out of reach from the warzones the museum would eventually herald, just out of both Manburg and Pogtopia's path to preserve these scraps of history from being tarnished even further. He hadn't heard the song before, but the melody came to mind and the lyrics rolled off his tongue naturally, a comforting familiarity that came out of nowhere. 

* * *

_ "Where everything stays." _ Wilbur mouthed, song crackling near inaudibly up his dry throat. The dryness may have had something to do with the cigarette teetering between his lips, but he hardly cared, not when he was surrounded by buttons that mocked his incompetence. It would be a waste of time to take them all down when a war was on the way, but it did serve as a horrid reminder of how tantalisingly close he had been to liberation. 

He scrunched his nose up as he plucked the cigarette from his mouth, promptly dropping it and crushing it beneath the toe of his shoe to extinguish it, narrowly missing another button in the process. He was tempted to try again with the express purpose of pressing it, but settled for nudging the edges with his boot. Wilbur scoffed.

A nice little melody, sure, but it was absolutely useless when they had a grand finale to prepare for.

**Author's Note:**

> this was just a really quick oneshot while I procrastinated on a longer oneshot I was working on to procrastinate on the next chapter of circlet of hellfire. I stumbled on this song again and thought it was relatively fitting so tada!
> 
> The lyrics are from 'Everything Stays' from Adventure Time :)


End file.
